Author's Note: if it's any consolation, this made it all the way from my phone to my email - and then it gathered dust. oop.


xi.

This is a dream. It cannot be anything but the twisted mechanism of her off-duty consciousness. She knows she's dreaming, yet still she's terrified.

She can feel the hot, slick heat beneath her fingers. Tries to grab a hold but can't, not quite. It won't stop moving, won't quit twitching. Throbbing. The thud of it in her hand. It's a dream because there is no way she could've burrowed her hand into the cage of her ribs to caress her own beating heart. The blood spilling from the open wound in her chest, it's too much. Her body doesn't hold this many pints but there it is, dripping down her forearms and painting her toes.

Her face is a mask of horror, she can tell without needing a reflection to confirm. There is a wrongness about this. Who is she to inflict such pain on herself? Who are these eyes watching but doing nothing to stop her? Really, who are they? They stand steeped in shadows and all she can make out are silhouettes in the glow of the fireplace.

They say once your mind realizes you're dreaming, it wants to push you up and out of sleep. But if you hold on tight enough, you can steer. Bonnie does neither. She can't pull herself out of this nightmare nor does she have control of it. All she can do is slip and slide her fingers against the pumping muscle, expelling a new wave of blood with each compression and release.

A shadow moves, appears in front of her. "Here, let me," it says before tearing her heart out of her chest. She registers dark brows and crystal blue eyes before she crumples to the cold floor.

Damon.

x

Waking out of her latest night terror affords her a few revelations. She didn't scream herself awake this time, a slumbering Liv in the other bed evidence of that. Instead, tears are in a free fall down her face, their trails of salt curving over her nose, her cheeks, dying on her pillowcase.

Every nightmare has been leading up to this. Each one a clue. Sometimes all she could see were the shadows and the fireplace. In others all she could smell was ash and salt and iron. The scariest were the ones when it was like being in a sensory deprivation chamber, see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing. In those dreams like vacuums, all she could do was feel. The shift in temperature, the pressure in her chest, the wetness at her fingertips. Never before had she gotten the full picture.

She shifts in her bed, sits up, and wipes at her face. Her dress lays at the foot of her bed, red and strappy and crushed velvet. Before leaving Mystic Falls, they drove to a boutique Bonnie had always liked. She couldn't afford most of its collection but she loved window shopping or giving solicited advice whenever Elena or Caroline asked. The owner lives in a bungalow next to the shop and Liv entranced him to open late and give Bonnie a sizable discount on the dress. The voice in the back of her head wondered how different Liv's spell was from compulsion, a vampire ability that always rubbed her the wrong way and she was not so secretly glad she was immune to. Liv had shrugged off her guilt, told her it doesn't force the other person to do something they don't absolutely want to do. It's way more encouragingly persuasive, less "date rape-y".

And the dress is gorgeous. Fit like it was tailored to her measurements, the sweetheart neckline tastefully giving a peek of cleavage and the hem falling just above her knees. Her toned calves will be on full display when she slips into a pair of black heels.

But she can't think about later right now.

Liv is the portrait of content and Bonnie is loathe to do anything to bring back that endearing scowl of hers. Grabbing her toiletries, she slips out of her dorm and down to the bathrooms.

It's early for a Saturday. Just after 7am so she washes up without distraction. Brushes her teeth and rids her skin of salt in one of the porcelain sinks. Watching her face in the mirror, she sees what effect the dreams have had on her. Dark under-eye bags and sallow skin. Her cheekbones are more pronounced, sharper, but she swears she hasn't lost weight. At least, she doesn't think she has.

She leaves the empty bathroom, returns to her room and can't bring herself to stay, to return to her bed. She takes her phone, her keys, and a sweater, and leaves. She has no place else to go. Not in Converses without socks, a tank top with no bra, cotton shorts meant for the eyes of no one with whom she doesn't share a roof.

Her cell phone vibrates, and in her shock she answers without looking at the caller ID. The voice on the other line tells her he needs to see her, so she obeys. Walks across campus, the wind summoning goosebumps on her legs. Cinches her sweater around her because what does Liv know? It's still spring and while fire is her go-to element, she can't help it if her limbs attract the cold. The sweaters stay.

She thinks nothing of strolling the sidewalks at this time of day, dressed like this. She thinks everything of there being one person who can cure this thing in her, and he called her before her brain could even piece it together.

The door is open before she sets foot on the bottom step, the ghost of him there and then gone in a blink. She follows him inside, shuts out the chill behind her. He appears with a steaming mug and she can smell the roasted coffee beans from here. Tucking into the cushion of the couch, she sinks and lets the heat from the mug warm her up. He sits at the other end of the couch, his own cup in hand, and watches her carefully.

"What do you know?" Kai asks and there is no sensuality in his tone. Nothing lighthearted, no amusement. There is worry, concern, a twinge of anger but directed at whom, Bonnie doesn't know.

"How did you know?"

He doesn't - or can't - answer that, his terse lips only pushing out his previous question. "What do you know?"

"I don't know anything."

He glares at her, and she challenges that skepticism. "Really, I don't. I don't know what these dreams are or what they mean. I don't know how you know, but that's the least surprising thing about this. I don't even know if they're meant to mean anything. Maybe they're not real. Maybe none of this is. The only things that I know are real - my scars and waking up screaming."

"Bonnie..."

A tear slip from her eye and she sniffs. "Half the time I even think I made you up in my head. How sick is that?" She takes a sip from her mug, lets the scalding coffee settle on her tongue, but she refuses to meet Kai's gaze right now. Which is good, because his expression is one of pure rage. Kai Parker is a lot of things but a figment of Bonnie's sadistically masochistic imagination he is not. Of all things, how dare she blame herself for this?

He swallows, put his mug on the coffee table, and laces his quivering fingers together. Opens his mouth to speak but Bonnie hiccups on her sadness. "Why are you doing this to me, Kai?"

He softens his gaze on her, her cheeks washed in another wave of tears. He can now experience a visceral reaction to the cries of others that he's never before felt. Way back when his siblings' tears didn't phase him. Not when he'd siphon their powers, though they begged him not to, though they pleaded in agony. He'd been so clouded by his own anger and pain to care about his brothers' and sisters' begging for their lives. Even now, Jo and Liv couldn't reach the emotional center he'd developed the way Bonnie could. He hates it but in his mind, it's better than the alternative.

"I promise I'm not doing anything. I've been trying to stop, save you from this."

"What? Save me from what? You know everything and I know nothing. What's happening to me? To Liv? She's not right either. You have to know that, too."

He clamps his lips shut, so she tries a different approach. She's found the chink in his armor before and she knows she can do it again. Of that, she's certain. "Why do my friends hate me?"

"They don't," and he rolls his eyes. Things would be so much easier if how the others feel for and treat Bonnie could be categorized as hate. But when had things ever been easy?

"No, they do. You don't see the way they look at me. The indifference in their eyes."

"They do not hate you."

"Then why are you doing this to me? What is there to protect me from - if not them and not you?" She wipes the sleeves of her sweater over her face, drying her skin with little precision. "Why can't you just be honest with me? You can't do suspicious things and then wonder why I don't trust you."

"Here's what you don't seem to get," he sighs, "I'm a man of variables. Cause and effect. I can see and weigh all the possible outcomes but I can never quite predict how you're going to react. If anything, you'd punish me for things you let your friends get away with. Including murder. And I like being right. So, humor me when I tell you honesty might not be my best policy."

"Then what do you need from me?"

"What?"

"If you're right, about my friends, how I handle my life, then you must need something. By your logic, there's no other reason anyone should be, would be interested in me."

"You're not listening. That's what makes me different than them. I don't need anything from you, Bonnie." And he almost says it, almost lets it slip. The thing he's been saying with his eyes the moment he saw her in the hallway of that club. And every time he's looked at her since.

"But you want something? Don't you?" Holding her breath, she sets aside the mug and tucks her legs underneath her. The sweater she wears falls away from her chest and it occurs to her this shirt may be see through. If it is, Kai keeps a tight grip on his mask so Bonnie can't tell if he notices. Her stomach clenches but her anxiety remains inward, so when her fingers grasp the fabric and slide it down her shoulders and arms they do not tremble. "If you don't want my magic... If you don't want my help... All that leaves is me."

"What are you doing?"

"You want me. I think I always knew that. Deep down. Maybe I've known from the beginning. Why else give me so much attention? No one else does. Not like you do, anyway."

Her sweater puddles about her hips but Kai's eyes don't waver away from her face. "Bonnie."

"Maybe we should both just get it out of our systems," she concludes resolutely. It worked for Caroline and Klaus, didn't it? Do it and be done with it? She could give away that much of herself, she thinks. It's not like it so much more than giving up her life time and again.

Kai doesn't seem to agree. "You operate from not trusting me, liking me, nor enjoying my company. What's the point?"

"Things are different now, aren't they? I'm different. You're...you've changed."

He squints at her. "You don't believe that."

A flash of him shivering under her, his back flat and her knelt in the snow, his eyes pleading. You have to believe me. I've changed.

So have I.

"I do. I do now."

She slips the strap of her tank off her shoulder but his hand interrupts its descent. He holds tightly to her upper arms and keeps his expression level but stern. "You're tired. You had a bad dream and you need rest."

"You're changing the subject."

"Ya know, I like us right now. I feel like we're in a good place." His eyes darken. "Don't make me something you regret."

The rebuff hurts. A warmth rushes throughout her and she doesn't like it. It's akin to embarrassment and it's gross to think Kai has that kind of effect on her. No, control over her. This attraction, this predatory dance they do with each other, she doesn't want to admit it's mutual but then why else is she here? Why answer when he calls? Why be anywhere alone with him?

And there is something there. Still undefinable on her part, but she likes this, too. It's morbid and makes her look in the mirror at herself a little less, but it's been a long while since she's gotten this much attention in a capacity that's beyond what problem she can fix, what trap she can set. When she talks, he listens. He pays attention and remembers things more keenly than she expects him to - because no one else does.

His acute awareness of her existence is as enticing as it is horrifying.

She sinks back on her heels, shoulders slumping forward. Her bravado and nerve both sufficiently squelched. "I dreamed Damon ripped my heart out of my chest - but not before I tried to do it myself." The smile that follows is purely self-deprecating. "It's probably another stupid dream but I get the strongest feeling you're right about my friends. And me."

"Oh, I know I'm right about them. But you? Do tell."

"It was my hand, Kai. I put it in there. I do this to myself. Over and over and over." Her eyes well with tears again. "And the worst part of that nightmare is no one tried to stop me."

His fingers still grip her arms, his skin on her own, but for once she's not as scared. He won't siphon her and even if he did it's Expression and she's better off without it. What does scare her more than proximity, more than the danger in his touch, is how badly she wants a hug. To feel the embrace of another, whose sole purpose in that moment is to comfort her. And it scares her because she can't verbalize that desire. Vowing to melt someone's face off? No problem. But asking for something as simple as a hug? It's a risk she won't willingly court.

Kai's eyebrows knit together, calculating, then he pulls her into him and cradles her against his chest. Her body rotating midway to him, she lays against him with his chin resting on her head and his arms wrapping her up. It's new but not uncomfortable and the last thing she wants to do is make it weird. The thud of his heart beating vibrates against the shell of her ear and his scent - cologne or natural musk, she can't tell - is the kind she'd like to keep whiffing. She essentially lays on top of him, his muscles a cushion. Defined and taut but still soft. Warm and fleshy under the layers of clothes that separate them.

Having swallowed her emotion, the urge to cry has expired but she wonders how long they can remain just like this. "You're really good at this."

"Big family. Lots of practice."

x

She awakens and Kai is nowhere to be found. Instead she sits up - from a plush pillow and a memory foam mattress. Her dress for the wedding is laid on the bed, Kai's bed, and Liv sits with her back to Bonnie as she fits on her shoes. She stands and slides the gold zipper of her dress upwards.

"Wha, what time is it?"

"Noon, a few hours 'til the wedding." She tosses a wink over her shoulder. "You're going to sleep your life away."

"Thanks, Mom."

"Kai called me. He didn't want to wake you. You had one of your bad dreams?"

Bonnie shakes her head to clear off the fog of sleep. Last thing she remembers is her and Kai on his couch, his lips on her forehead... But between then and now - nothing. She slept all the way through. No nightmares, no dreams at all.

She rubs her knuckles into her eyes. "Is he here?"

Liv turns to face her, smooths down her black dress with gold adornments. "He got a call he had to take. Coven business or whatever. Better him than me." She finger combs her curls and adjusts the bust of her dress for maximum cleavage. "But now the important question. How gorgeous do I look?"

"Drop dead."

Liv grins and Bonnie smiles - while pushing back the memory of Liv's corpse surrounded by shattered glass and bouquets. Liv holds her hands out, palms up, and Bonnie grabs them. "Your turn."

The girls ready themselves, chattering idly about work and classes. Spring break is approaching and neither have plans. Liv is displaced but also a little lost without Luke. Bonnie hasn't had a real spring break since high school. Tentatively, they plan to tuck away in Grams' cottage in Mystic Falls until something else pops up. Rodney actually scheduled to close the bar that week to visit family, so they're giddy for the free time.

Bonnie glides the zipper up her side when Liv's cell phone rings. The blonde frowns at the caller id.

"Dad?" Then she cups the phone to her ear. "Wait, Dad! I can't hear you." Liv hurries down from the loft and out of the apartment. Alone, Bonnie wraps her arms around herself and looks around the room. The bed is a king set up on a cherry wood box. The decor and color scheme match the downstairs. No nineties memorabilia, nothing to hint this space belongs to a man out of time.

Kai appears at the top of the stairs and Bonnie swears she never heard him come through the front door. He dons a navy suit, a white shirt with a banded collar, and a tidied amount of scruff on his face. Damn, does Kai Parker know how to clean up well, she grudgingly admits to herself. And by the way his eyes roam over Bonnie's body, he's thinking the same about her.

"You weren't there the whole time, were you?" She rolls her eyes. "Like you'd tell me the truth if you were."

"There's that not trusting me. I really thought we made a breakthrough earlier."

"I had a bad dream and you gave me a hug. Don't start picking out matching towels just yet."

He shakes his head, rubs his finger across his lip, and Bonnie is drawn to the movement more than she thinks she should be. He steps towards her and she retreats until the backs of her knees meet his mattress. He gives her a reproachful look because of course she should know better by know. If he's going to pounce, he'd be sneakier than that. Crouching in front of her, he runs his palms down her hips and gingerly grips the hem of her dress, his fingertips brushing her bare thighs. He rips off a piece of red fabric.

"What the hell?" she gasps. Not that she knew what he had in mind, but destroying her dress wasn't exactly it.

He glances up with heavy lids and a raised eyebrow. A tiny bit of magic wasps out and repairs the tear, like it never existed. He then tucks his prize in his suit jacket pocket. "Ta da."

Her phone chimes and she jumps, whips around, crawls across the sheets to find it burrowed under a pillow. Shaking off the heat rising inside her, she frowns at the screen and curls her legs at her side. "Liv texted. She has to pick up your dad."

She looks over at Kai, whose guarded expression can't disguise the enchanted haze in his eyes. She knits her brows. "Kai."

He blinks and he's back to cold and aloof again. "Yep?"

"Think you can give me a ride to the ceremony?"

He shrugs. "I don't see why not. It's not like you're my date or anything."

She nods to herself. Yeah, she'd forgotten about that formality. She had secretly hoped Liv would third wheel it with them. He holds out his hand, which she takes, and he helps her climb off the bed. She finds her footing on the cool hardwood floor - but not before falling against his chest.

She shakes her hair out of her face. "What happened to gentle?"

"I can be when I want to be."